The first wave hit like a tidal surge. Thread-bound beasts poured through the breach—some shaped like warped lions with too many eyes, others like armored insects with blade-limbs that screeched as they moved. Golden threads glowed under their skin, puppeteering every twitch.
Kiel didn't wait.
One heartbeat, he was standing. The next, he was everywhere. Flames erupted where his fists landed, frost crystallized in the wake of his kicks, shadows writhed behind him like hunting hounds. The hybrid system had stopped fighting for dominance—it had decided to merge everything at once.
And it was killing him.
---
Riven flanked left, a cyclone of black tendrils tearing beasts apart before they could overwhelm Nyra. She stood at the center, her staff whirling as she wove rapid-fire sigils into the air. Each rune detonated in a burst of lightning, but every kill was replaced by two more enemies crossing the rift.
Zaira rejoined the fray despite her wounded arm, her daggers now glowing with a blood-red enchantment. She darted in and out of melee, severing the golden threads that controlled the smaller creatures, leaving them to collapse into heaps of lifeless flesh.
"THIS is slowing them?!" she yelled over the chaos.
Nyra didn't answer—her focus was absolute. Any lapse, and the beasts would overrun the seal points she'd hastily carved into the temple floor.
---
The Threadlord watched without moving, its faceless robes rippling in a wind that wasn't there. Every so often, a golden thread would lash from its sleeve and strike an ally dead without warning.
Kiel saw one coming for Riven.
He moved—no thought, just instinct. His body blurred, claws slashing through the thread. The backlash nearly dropped him, a lightning bolt of pain ripping through every nerve.
His vision doubled.
He could see the battlefield—and the world behind it. A realm of endless woven light, where billions of threads stretched into infinity. Every enemy here was just a puppet, every thread leading back to the same vast, monstrous loom.
The hybrid system whispered:
> Pull hard enough, and you can unravel everything.
---
Kiel's eyes glowed—one burning crimson, the other glacial blue. He tore into the beasts with reckless speed, his blows no longer just breaking bodies—they were snapping threads. Every snap sent golden sparks flying, each one burning a hole into the stone floor before vanishing.
Riven kept pace, barely. "You're going too far!"
Kiel didn't answer. The wolf in him wanted to rip, the dragon wanted to burn, and the magic wanted to erase. Together, they pushed him beyond the limits of mortal combat.
He punched through a lion-beast's chest, its golden threads unraveling midair. He spun, his tail—a manifestation of Qi and shadow—whipping an insectoid's head clean off. He roared, a shockwave of sound flattening the enemies in front of him.
---
But the power was costing him.
Cracks began to spread along his skin—not cuts, but fractures of light and darkness, as if his body was becoming a fragile shell barely containing the chaos inside. His breath came in ragged bursts. Every heartbeat was a thunderclap in his ears.
The Threadlord finally moved.
It raised its arms. Golden threads shot outward—not to kill, but to wrap around Kiel. They tried to pierce him, but instead, they fused with the threads already forming inside his hybrid system.
The result was catastrophic.
Kiel screamed—not in pain, but in raw, primal fury. His aura exploded in all directions, blasting friend and foe alike. Stone shattered, walls crumbled, and the rift itself flickered.
---
"KIEL!" Nyra's voice cut through the storm. "If you tear the rift now, you'll take this whole city with it!"
He turned toward her, eyes glowing brighter, his breathing feral. For a moment, she didn't know if he recognized her—or if he saw her as another thread to cut.
Then, slowly, he looked past her… to the Threadlord.
The hybrid system pulsed, and Kiel's voice came out low, guttural.
"Then I'll end it at the source."
Before anyone could stop him, he launched himself into the rift.